Arizona Midterm Elections Annulment Request

Lawsuit brought by Josh Barnett, who lost the Republican primary for Arizona’s 1st Congressional District by a significant margin, against Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors alleging that the “General Election in Maricopa County was rendered incurably uncertain due to official misconduct, and it must be annulled.” The plaintiff alleges that the election board checked voters in at the polling place “to engage their sacred votes with very sick voting machines by printing a ballot, while knowing there was an abnormal likelihood that the ballot would not be tabulated” and that this situation “trapped voters into a desperate situation where they were prevented from voting on accurate voting machines, and were forced to vote by methods unfamiliar to them, including placing their ballot in the misread ballot box for duplication followed by adjudication.” The plaintiff argues that, because “of the misconduct of these officers in creating the conditions by which the chaos ensued, the canvas[s] has been made bad.” He states if the election board “made a good canvas[s], [he] would not be pleading before this Honorable Court.” 

The plaintiff also states that he “seeks to avail himself of Declaratory relief before the legal, political, and psychological burdens which stack up after the election is canvassed by the Secretary of State, and winners are Declared.” The plaintiff requests a judgment stating that the election “concluding on November 8, 2022 has been rendered incurably uncertain due to the misconduct of Election Boards and officers making and participating in the canvas[s] thereof” and argues that the races for “Governor; Secretary of State; Attorney General; and United States Senator have been rendered incurably uncertain under Arizona statutes and precedents.” He also requests that Hobbs be prevented from certifying the statewide election results for these races and that these races be annulled, arguing that if “the election is annulled, it’s legally void. The law no longer recognizes that there was an election, and therefore all legal uncertainty is terminated as well. It’s like the difference between a divorce and an annulment; a divorce ends the marriage, whereas an annulment means you were never married.”

A hearing was held on Dec. 2. After the hearing, a judge granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case.

Last updated: December 5, 2022 2:47 pm EST